This invention relates generally to the art of fluid-conveying pipe coupling joints which are embedded in concrete barriers, especially floors, when the barriers are formed and then coupled to pipes on opposite ends thereof for forming an integral part of a fluid flow system. More particularly, this invention concerns an apparatus and method for holding a coupling joint in a concrete floor form during a pour.
Until relatively recently, pipe networks were only extended through floors of buildings by forming holes in the floors--e.g., by using void forming devices during the "pouring" of the floors, by knocking out holes, by boring such holes after the floors were formed, etc.--and thereafter extending pipes through these holes. Normally, such holes are made to be bigger than the pipes to ensure that one can extend pipes easily through the holes. Thereafter, it is necessary for workmen to fill the spaces between the pipes and holes with cement or other substances in order to meet fire codes which generally do not allow holes in floors.
Within the last few years, there have been a number of patents issued, such as Harbeke (U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,313,286 and 4,453,354) and Cornwall (U.S. Pat. No. 4,261,598) for the concept of cementing pipe coupling joints into building barriers, such as floors, when the floors are poured and thereafter mating external pipes to female opposite ends of the embedded coupling joints. Flanges on ends of such embedded pipe coupling joints are screwed or nailed to wood forms. Such practices are normally carried out with plastic pipe, however, they could also be carried out with pipes made of other materials.
A difficulty which often arises in the use of embedded pipe coupling joints having flanges on the ends thereof for attaching the couplings to form walls is that the form walls themselves often have ridges therein and are generally not flat. In such situations, when one attaches flanges of embedded pipe coupling joints to such ridged, bumpy, or otherwise unlevel form walls, spaces are often left between the ends of the flanges and portions of the form walls. Concrete pressure forces concrete through these openings and up into the bores of the coupling joints where it later hardens. Of course before pipes can be attached to such coupling joints, the bores of the joints must be cleaned out and the bores can be damaged thereby. It is an object of this invention to provide a pipe coupling holder for holding a pipe coupling joint onto a ridged, or otherwise bumpy form in a reliable manner, so as not to allow concrete to significantly seep into the bore of the pipe coupling joint.
Another difficulty with attaching flanged pipe coupling joints to ridged or unlevel form walls is that in order to make the pipe coupling joints sit properly on the forms it would be necessary to cut the ends of the coupling joints to accommodate the form ridges. But in order to do this one would have to cut away a portion of the flange which would be difficult and which would make it impossible to use the flange on tops of ridges. Thus, it is an object of this invention to provide a pipe coupling to fit the form ridges without cutting a flange but yet which has a flange for attaching the pipe coupling holder to the tops of form ridges.
A further object of this invention is to provide a pipe coupling joint holder which is easy and inexpensive to construct and is also easy and inexpensive to use at a work site.
It is a further object of this invention to provide such a pipe coupling joint holder which is extremely flexible in use in that it can be easily used with irregularly shaped form walls having any of a variety of configurations as well as with regularly shaped form walls.